


everything changes but the sea

by skuls



Series: X Files Rewatch Series [13]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s04e07 Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, Episode: s04e23 Demons, Talitha Cumi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 22:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12118422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: He’d never once considered being a father. (extended backstory on CSM)





	everything changes but the sea

**Author's Note:**

> this sprung from interest in the backstory hinted at in demons and talitha cumi/irritation that moacsm didn’t cover that instead of all that villian mary sue bullshit. warning for csm’s usual creepiness and bullshit. disclaimer: the views expressed in this fic do not at all resemble the views of the writer.

“It struck me as I was sitting here… everything changes but the sea.” -CSM, 3x24 _Talitha Cumi_

 

He’d never once considered being a father. Not after his father. Not after the criminal his old man had been. The orphanages he’d grown up in had turned him off of children permanently--all the loud shouting, sharp elbows in his face, sticky fingers and stifled sobs and unintentionally (or intentionally) knocking his books into the mud. He had no interest in that for the rest of his life; children had always seemed a burden. But somehow, inexplicably… it happened.

Bill Mulder had come back from leave, telling everyone that his wife was pregnant, and he’d known. He’d just known. He hadn’t had to call Teena for confirmation, hadn’t wanted to. Things were better, it seemed, if the baby remained Bill’s. No risk of embarrassment for either of them. He’d wanted to forget it, but had found it impossible. He found himself considering things in the middle of the night, lying awake with his thoughts stealing to Teena, the baby, as much as he tried to push them away. Bill had gone on leave again and returned, showing everyone pictures, the picture of an excited young father. Spender had dutifully looked at the snapshots of the new baby (who was staring at the photographer with huge dark eyes), thumped Bill in the back in congratulations. Waited till everyone was gone before muttering, “What a stupid fucking name.”

He tried not to think about it. He focused on his drills, on his books. Holed up in his hard mattress turning pages and didn't think of the baby. He didn't want to be a father. He didn't want to think of that night with Teena. He stayed focused, did his duty, told himself that Fox was Bill’s son and it didn't matter.

Bill invited him to come visit on their next leave, when the baby was six months old. He rode up the coast in Bill's car, the radiator rattling with military-like precision. Teena looked different than he remembered, hair falling over her face and hiding it from view as she bent to scoop up the baby. Her hair had been short when he'd known her, and now it was long and loose and wavy. She was a mother now, holding her baby gently and looking down at him before everyone else.

The baby was always crawling, always on the move. Once, he tugged Spender’s pants cuff, and Spender looked down on the baby with what he hoped was detachment. _You're Bill’s son,_ he told the baby silently. He reminded himself that the baby had a stupid fucking name. The baby gnawed on his fist and stared up at him with the eyes he thought he could remember his mother having, a long time ago.

He could blend into the background of the house; Teena rarely, if ever, spoke to him directly, and they both seemed wrapped up in the baby. Spender did what he usually did and read a lot, feet propped up on the ottoman so he wouldn't block the baby's crawling paths. He shouldn't have come.

On his last night, he ran into Teena as she folded laundry in the living room. Bill had driven into town for some groceries. The baby was asleep. Teena didn't look up as he entered. “There's leftover chicken if you're still hungry,” she said briskly, crisping the edge of a sheet between her fingers.

“I'm fine, thank you.” He sat across from her, back ramrod straight, and lay his palms flat on his knees.

Teena sighed, wearily, and set the sheet down on the pile. “What do you want? I'm very busy.”

“I'm sure,” he said calmly. “Your son seems to be very healthy.” This seemed like an understatement to him; every time the kid cried, it was earsplitting to the point that the house seemed to tremble on its foundation.

Her shoulders tensed; she stared hard at the wicker laundry basket. “Thank you,” she finally replied, stiffly, as she folded a washed diaper.

“May I ask you a question?” She gave no indication of permission. He plunged on anyway. “Why Fox?”

“That is none of your business,” said Teena coldly.

“I think it's very much my business,” he tried. Teena still wasn't looking at him, routinely stacking diapers. “Teena.” He lowered his voice. “I assume he's mine. After that night…”

“That night never _happened_ ,” she hissed. “We agreed.”

“The timing is right, Teena.” He lowered his voice and used her middle name, the name she'd been trying out when he'd known her in college, the name he'd whispered to her that night. “Elizabeth…”

“He is my son,” she said firmly. “Mine. And that's the end of it.” She finally looked up, dark hair slipping around her face. She held his gaze with a cold steadiness.

Somewhere in the house, the baby started wailing. He winced delicately; the constant crying was terribly annoying. Teena got to her feet, scooping the diapers into her hands, and rushed down the hall. He could hear her soft soothing under the baby's sobs as he went back to the guest room. When they left in the morning it was early, before Teena or the baby were up.

It seemed easy to forget, after that. He threw himself into drills, his duties. He read books. He kept talking to Bill Mulder. Months passed, and before he knew it, he was being summoned to General Francis’s office.

“My one-year-old just said his first word,” Bill said as he stood to leave, and Spender shoved down the usual burn of jealousy (the origins of which weren't exactly clear). He hadn't even known the kid had celebrated a birthday yet.

Bill showed him the snapshot, of Teena holding the baby on her lap. “What was the word?” he asked, somewhere between politeness and actual curiosity.

“J.F.K.,” Bill said fondly. He smiled, and Spender smiled too. He wasn't sure why. He went to the office and accepted a top-secret assignment that would change the course of history, and thought about his son's first word as the details became clear. It was like a strange twist of fate, or destiny. Maybe his son subconsciously knew what his father was destined for.

He went back to the bunk to pack his things. “Where you going?” asked Bill from his bunk, sprawled across the scratchy blanket.

“Reassignment,” he said, latching his suitcase shut.

“Where to?”

“Classified.”

Bill made a sound of understanding, getting to his feet. “I think it's safe to say we'll all miss you around here,” he said, extending his hand. Spender took it, shook it. “Good luck.”

“You, too.” He thumped Bill on the back before stepping away. “Take care of that boy of yours, Mulder,” he said, lifting his bag off of the bunk. Bill nodded at him as he left.

Bill hadn't noticed when he'd grabbed the picture of Teena and the boy from the bedside table and stuck it in his suitcase. It was something.

\---

Time passed. Bill and Teena had another child, one that was definitely not his. He spent the majority of his time in shadowy, smoke-choked rooms or in his shabby apartment, hunched over a typewriter. He kept the picture, even though the child had grown into a knobby-kneed toddler. Bill still seemed to consider him a friend. He was invited to visit the Mulders at Quonochontaug during the summer, and he accepted. He wanted to see the children and Teena; and besides that, his supervisors had an interest in Bill Mulder. “Particularly his children,” they told him. He didn't dare mention that they both weren't his.

He went to the seaside house at  Quonochontaug and was greeting by more crying, this time the higher shrieks of a little girl. Bill greeted him at the door with a strong handshake. “Good to see you,” he said heartily, motioning him in. “It's been too long.”

“It has,” he said, putting out his lit cigarette in the ashtray by the door. In the open door to the living room, he could see Teena pacing with a sobbing dark-haired baby on her shoulder. No emotion rose at the sight; he felt no connection to this one.

“Teena, he's here!” Bill called, leading him into the living room. Teena turned and forced a smile to the surface, but he saw the wary look on her face. The baby, whose crying had tamped off into hiccups, stared at him with big brown eyes, curls frizzing all over her tiny head, and he was reminded of how Fox had been bald, even at one. “This is Samantha,” Bill said proudly, reaching out to tickle her tiny bare foot. Samantha giggled, kicking and wriggling in her mother's arms. _Of course,_ he thought, _of course they'd give Bill's child a normal fucking name._

“She's very beautiful,” he said stiffly.

Teena narrowed her eyes and turned, saying, “She needs to go down for her nap,” as she went.

Bill waved goodbye to the baby before turning back to him. “Oh, and you haven't seen Fox in a long time, have you?”

“No,” he replied in that same stiff, polite voice. He _hadn't_ see Fox in that long; he'd refused to spy like that. All he had was the stolen picture. “How old is he again?”

“Four,” Bill said proudly. “He's growing up so fast. He's probably off watching television somewhere…”

They went into another room and there he was, sprawled on the floor in front of the television and playing with what looked like army men. The kid looked up at them uncertainly, his eyes fixing on Spender. “Who’re you?”

He ignored the prickle of annoyance at the boy's words, and said, “A friend of your father's.”

“Mr. Spender is going to stay with us for a few days, Fox,” Bill was saying. “I expect you to be polite.”

He was watching the boy. His hair was as dark as Teena’s, his eyes the same as when he was a baby. The boy gave them an uncertain look before mumbling something of acknowledgement and sweeping over a line of army men with his arm, yelping loudly as he did so. Spender raised an eyebrow as he imitated explosions, tossing the little toys around. The television droned on in the background.

He turned and touched Bill on the arm. “Mulder, there's a business opportunity,” he said quietly. “The one I left the military for. One I think you'd be interested in.”

“What kind of opportunity?” Bill asked, watching the boy sing along to the theme song of the show that had just come on.

He didn't answer. He put his hands in his pockets and said, “You work for the State Department, right?”

Bill looked at him, then, face blank. “Let's talk outside,” he said finally. “I can show you the boat and the water skis.”

They talked down by the water until the sky was painted orange with the setting sun. Teena called for dinner and Bill called back that they would be inside in a minute. Nearly an hour later, she came out with the children. She held the baby on the porch while the boy ran around the yard, patting the baby's back and watching them instead of the boy.

Bill Mulder shook his hand just as the sun sunk under the horizon, and it was done. He wouldn't know the full details of the assignment until later.

In the darkening twilight, Bill went up to the porch to talk to his wife. He stood on the lawn and watched them argue, heads bent close together. Teena stood abruptly and went into the house, the baby asleep on her shoulder. Bill followed, the screen door smacking shut behind him. He watched, silence but for the sea churning before him. The sea, and the sudden ear-splitting cry behind him.

He turned and saw the boy on the pavement, sobbing like he hadn't grown any since the last time Spender had seen him. He drew closer, kneeling beside the boy and asking, “What happened?”

“My knee,” the kid wailed. Under the hand he had pressed to his knee, there was a slight trickle of blood.

Spender tapped the boy's hand in an indication to move it so he could see; when he didn't, Spender pulled the fingers back himself and studied it. Just a scrape. He'd seen a lot worse. “It doesn't look serious,” he said sternly.

“It huuuuurts.” The kid snatched his hand back and rubbed his eyes with his fists, sniffling. “Where's Mommy?”

“Fox, my goodness.” Out of nowhere, it seemed, Teena appeared and knelt on the other side of the boy. He latched onto her immediately, and she pulled back slightly to get a good look. “It's just a scrape, sweetheart, calm down,” she soothed immediately, smoothed his dark hair. The boy sniffled and threw his arms around her neck. She scooped him up and stood. She hadn't looked at Spender once.

“Lucky I was here,” he said, standing as well and brushing dirt off of his suit pants.

“Yes,” Teena murmured to the top of her son's head. “Fox, say thank you to Mr. Spender.”

“Thank you,” the boy sniffled into his mother's neck. Teena turned and carried him into the house.

He turned to watch the churning sea. Inside, he could hear the baby wailing.

Samantha and Fox. They had different fathers. And that, it seemed, would determine their fate.

\---

When it was determined that he would be committing another assassination, he was already seeing Cassandra. Three days after his meeting, she showed up at his apartment in the midst of his work on his novel and told him she was pregnant.

A combination of excitement and worry flashed through his mind. This child would be his, someone he could raise--but his employers would certainly be interested in his child, watch his family the way they had watched other families. (He had a file full of names and addresses in his cabinet: the Browns. The Fowleys. The Hendricks. The Youngs. The Scullys. The Kryceks. The Mulders, of course; that was his assignment specifically.) It was inevitable; they'd have an interest in his child. The most he could hope for was to gain some control in the situation.

He proposed to Cassandra and promised to give her a ring and a house. He was called to a meeting the night later. His employees were interested, just like he'd known they would be. They didn't know that Fox Mulder was his, but they knew about Cassandra already. Incredible. He and Teena had hidden things well.

“We have an interest in this child, as I'm sure you know,” they said. “It's your duty, remember.”

“I know,” he said. He cleared his throat. “I'll agree, under one impression. I supervise. I'm the child's caretaker. They stay with me, the baby and Cassandra both, when they're not taking parts in experiments.”

They said, “You won't feel sympathy? Your bias won't come into play? You won't change your mind and take him away?”

“Duty comes first,” he said. “My child should be proud to serve our cause.”

“If you prove to be trustworthy,” they said, “we agree. But be warned. We'll be watching.”

He took a long drag off of his cigarette and said, “I know.”

It was a boy, another son. Cassandra named him Jeffrey. Looking at his son, he felt a rush of pride. Somewhere he had another son who was seven years old who he didn't know, who he only saw when he briefly visited Bill in Massachusetts or Rhode Island. Here was his new son, _his_ son. Surely Cassandra wouldn't keep him from Jeffrey the way Teena had kept him from Fox. Surely things would be different.

He still had to do his work observing the Mulders, and it unfortunately wasn't something he could do with Cassandra and Jeffrey around. He and Bill were close because of work (they still hadn't told him that he'd have to give up one of his kids) and Bill had seemed more than open to the suggestion of the Spenders joining them at their summer house, but Cassandra didn't like the Mulders. The four adults had been to dinner, once, and the awkwardness had been palpable, especially between Teena and Cassandra, who'd never met. They were different as night and day, Cassandra light-haired where Teena was dark, Cassandra free-spirited and ditzy where Teena was serious. He hadn't dared told Cassandra that Teena was the mother of his other child. That would not go over well. He did what he could, encouraged Cassandra to make friends, but Teena was even less interested in the whole prospect than she was. It was useless. Still, he did what he could. Jeffrey and Cassandra would go and visit her mother in the summer, and he'd drive up to the Mulder summer house and spend a week or two with them.

Teena still distrusted him at first, but the more he was around (without acting too fatherly towards Fox), the more she loosened up. The three of them would spend hours out on the porch smoking and sipping wine. Teena didn't talk much, but the tenseness in her shoulders faded away until they both could laugh at Bill's stories. It was good, he thought, that they trusted him. It would help.

Fox grew into a gangly child through eight, nine, ten, who would disappear for hours outside with their black lab and reappear with a dirty face and scratches along his arms, waving a stick as he recounted his adventures to his mother. He and Bill didn't seem particularly close, however, and he never acknowledged Spender unless he had to. (Fox didn't seem to notice Spender watching him, almost out of the corner of his eye. He noticed what the boy was reading; he seemed to have an interest in science fiction. To say that Fox talked a lot was an understatement; he never shut up, rambling on at dinner, waving a forkful of potatoes or peas or chicken back and forth while his little sister whined about how she _never_ got to talk. He watched the boy, looking for signs of himself or his other son or the mother he barely remembered. Looking for signs of pride.)

The little girl, Samantha, he barely noticed. She always wanted to tag along with her brother, but it usually ended in a yelling match and tears on Samantha's end. She played on her own a lot--dolls, make believe, riding her tricycle (and later bicycle) in the driveway and up and down the street, tea parties with her stuffed animals that she always begged her parents and brother to attend. She was bright-eyed and physically fit, exactly the type they'd be looking for. She'd skip around the house, shouting nursery rhymes in a sing-song tone until Spender thought his head would explode. Bill really, really loved her--more, maybe, than he loved Fox. He wondered if Bill knew, somewhere in his self-conscious. He knew, every time he looked at her, what awaited her if he had his pick. Samantha herself had no idea; she mostly ignored him but was nice enough, offering him plastic teacups full of water every now and then. Certainly politer than Fox was, he mused.

Mostly, the kids ignored him. He was “Daddy's friend”, who didn't talk to them and spent half the day in his room, typewriter click-clacking. Fox seemed a little suspicious of him, but it was only a little. When he arrived the year Fox was eight, the boy had come rambling up to his mother and talked at a rapid-fire pace. Teena had instructed him to say hello, and he'd ground out a rushed, “HelloMr.Spender,” before continuing to talk to his mother like he didn't exist.

His other son, Jeffrey, kept growing as well, and the older he got, the more clear it became that he was entirely like his mother. He had a serious demeanor that Spender saw in himself, but otherwise he was all Cassandra. They were the closest in the family, Jeffrey always clinging to Cassandra’s side or climbing up into her lap. She read him his story, every single night, and half the time she'd fall asleep in his room and not bother coming to bed. One night, he'd come to Jeffrey's room and offered to read his story, and Jeffrey had shaken his head wildly and said, “Want Mommy to do it,” around his thumb. Well, then. He did what he usually did and went out to the porch to have a cigarette. It seemed like bitter irony that both his sons loved their mothers more than him.

One night, Jeffrey wandered out on the porch in his striped pajamas and climbed up on the porch swing next to him. Surprised, he said, “Hello there, Jeffrey.”

“Hi, Daddy.” It was easy to forget how tiny Jeffrey was, only three years old, until he was right next to him like this. He swung his legs back and forth, looking around at the stars and the outstretched lawn before looking back at Spender. “You smell, Daddy,” Jeffrey said, matter-of-factly.

He could remember thinking that about his mother, vaguely. It had been the reason he'd stayed away from them, before he tried them and got hooked. “It's the cigarettes,” he explained.

Jeffrey wrinkled his nose. “They're groooooss.”

“I think they smell nice,” he said and his son giggled in delight. It was a nice sound, he was surprised to find. He imagined, for a minute, every night being like this: his son being delighted to be near him, laughing at things he said, looking at him like he was some sort of a hero. And for a minute, his mind delved towards his other son. Imagined Fox sitting beside them on the swing, the same respect and amazement aimed towards _him,_ their father. Better than his old man had ever been. Fox and Jeffrey could be brothers, real brothers the way he himself had never had. Fox could take care of Jeffrey, play with him. They could be a family; he could raise his sons to be good men.

(One time, months later, he was in Massachusetts to gather intel on the Mulders. He sat outside their house watching, got lost in a bottle of booze and the pack of cigarettes on his dashboard. He saw the light on in an upstairs room that he suspected was Fox staying up to read, and all of a sudden, he got an uncontrollable urge. He imagined stealing into the dark house and waking Fox and Samantha, leading them out to the car and driving away. He could deliver the girl to the facility and bring Fox home to Jeffrey and Cassandra. They could be a family. He was ready to do it, had his hand on the door handle. But he'd ended up passing out. When he woke up, the entire thing seemed insane. He drove home with a pounding headache and slept it off.)

\---

The time came two years later. Jeffrey had just turned five. He was called to meet with his employers, and they stared at him through the smoke swirling the room. They all smoked, constantly. He took a long drag off of his cigarette and flicked the ashes off of the end.

“This November, there will be an abduction at the Mulder house,” they said. “It is time.”

He coughed into his fist, said, “I know.” He'd expected this for a time.

“Has Bill Mulder been made aware? Has he made a choice yet?”

_Samantha,_ he thought. Samantha was the only choice. For a time, he'd thought about convincing them to choose Fox, so his son could come to live with him, but he'd reconsidered after seeing some of the experiments for himself. Besides that, if Jeffrey was destined to be involved in the experiments, than it was better that only one of his offspring was involved. It was only fair. He couldn't make all the sacrifice, and Bill Mulder required a sacrifice of his own. Even if he'd raised Fox as his son, the fact remained that he wasn't. Samantha was the only choice.

“No,” he said aloud.

“We will tell him,” they said. “But you are to oversee the whole process. You are to oversee his choice.”

Bill was called. He waited outside the room while they met with Bill, going through cigarette after cigarette. Bill shouted and shouted, but it was to no avail. Two hours later, he stumbled out of the room, face white as a sheet. “You okay, Mulder?” Spender asked, standing to greet his friend and stubbing out his cigarette on the wall. It left a black mark on the wall.

Bill rubbed his eyes, leaning against the door. “Fuck,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Cigarette?” he asked, extending one to Bill.

“I hate the smell of the damn things. I need a fucking drink,” Bill said through clenched teeth.

They went to a bar. Bill drank and drank, eyes squeezed closed. He smoked and watched him, thinking of Jeffrey and the day he'd have to go away. Thinking of what Cassandra would say.

“They want me to sacrifice one of my children,” Bill finally slurred, hunched over his fifth glass of Scotch. “My _children_.”

_No,_ he thought, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. _Not all yours._

“If I don't,” said Bill, rubbing his eyes, “they'll kill them all. Fox. Samantha. Teena. Me.” He gulped the rest of his drink. “What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to choose?”

He took another drag on his cigarette. “I suppose,” he said, “that you have to look at it strategically, Bill. Who will bring you more out of life? Who could you stand to lose? Who will go further in this world, your son or your daughter?”

“Fuck you,” Bill slurred. “ _Fuck you._ You have no idea what it is to choose. You'll never understand.”

He swirled his drink in his glass, tapped the ashes into the ashtray. And said calmly, “Someday, I'll take my son in for their experiments. I have no choice. Jeffrey is the only choice. My wife may hate me. I don't know what will happen to my son. But I'll do it, because it is my duty. _Our_ duty, to our country.”

Bill was quiet, his face stony still. He stared down into his glass. “You'll still have a child left at the end of the day,” Spender said. “Who will it be? I think it should be your son.” _My son_ , he thought. _Mine. And as much as I hate it, he'll be safe with you and his mother._

They drove to Rhode Island, Bill mulling over it the whole time. By the time they reached the house at Quonochontaug, he'd decided. “Samantha,” he muttered. “I'm going to let them take my little girl.” He buried his face in his hands, mumbling, “Oh my god.”

“It'll be okay,” Spender said from the driver's seat. “Come on, let's go to sleep. We can enjoy the time left with your daughter tomorrow. You still have a few months, remember.”

“No,” Bill said, muffled by his palms. He looked up, some kind of grief-crazed determination in his eyes. “Teena. I need to tell Teena. I need to make her understand.”

He started to argue, but Bill was up the porch stairs and in the house before he could stop him. By the time he reached inside, Teena was trying to steer him into the bedroom. “Bill, settle down, the kids are asleep in the loft,” she hissed. “They'll hear you. Come on, let's go to bed…”

“No, Teena, no, we need to talk,” Bill insisted. “We need to talk.” She froze, eyes stealing to where he stood in the corner. “Here, sit down, sweetheart, sit down,” he said, nudging her onto the couch.

She obliged, looking between them uncertainly. “Bill, what's going on?” she asked, face white with fear as she looked between the two men.

Bill took an uncertain breath, paced around the room. “We… we have to give up one of our children.”

He didn't think it was possible, but she paled even more. “What?” she whispered incredulously.

“We have to, Teena. For our country. For ourselves… they said they they'd kill us if they didn't.”

“ _They_?” Teena’s voice sharpened. “Who is they? Is it… is it him?” She jabbed a finger at where he was standing in the corner.

“No, Teena,” Bill snapped, running his hands through his hair. “It's not him, of course it's not. It's the people above us.”

“Your… employers? Your employers want you to give up your… child?”

“Yes,” Bill said wearily. “Yes, exactly.”

“I don't believe you,” she said simply.

“Well, you'd better start,” Bill snapped. “I could lose my job, Teena.”

“I don't give a damn about your job!” she shouted. “I'm not giving up my _children,_ Bill! I'd leave you before I would give them up, either of them!”

Bill stiffened, spine straightening. “You wouldn't,” he replied coldly. “You'll be a single mother. You can barely handle a day alone with them, Teena, how could you…”

“They are my _children_ , I carried them, I've done more for them than you ever have!” Teena snapped, furious, hair wisping around her face. “I didn't choose to _sacrifice_ them! I'm not letting you take them! Either of them! I'd die first!”

“You may have to. They'll kill you,” said Bill coldly. Teena clasped her hands together tightly, tears springing to her eyes. “They'll kill us and take them both. Or maybe they'll kill them, too, they have no mercy. How would you feel, with Fox and Samantha both dead?” Teena moaned, closing her eyes, but Bill plunged on. “This way is better, you have to understand. We have no choice. This way we still get one child. One of them will be safe.”

Teena moaned again, burying her face in her hands. For a minute, all they could hear were soft sniffles. And then a murmur: “Which one?”

Bill sighed. “Samantha,” he said. “They'll take Samantha.”

She stiffened immediately. Bill went to her side to comfort her, and she cried out, “No!” He sat beside her and tried to touch her. “No!” she wailed. “My baby!” Bill touched her shoulders, and she shook him off. “Get away!” She got to her feet, storming across the room to where Spender stood, and hit him hard in the chest. “Not Samantha!” she roared, hitting him again. “This is your doing, isn't it? You want to take her away from me!” Again and again, tapering off into sobs. “You want to ruin everything! Well, you're not going to! Not my baby, not Samantha!”

She went in to hit him again, but he grabbed her by the shoulders. She froze, terror across her face. He could remember once when he'd held her lovingly, when he'd thought she might love him, too. He loved Cassandra, but there were still times when he remembered Teena, dreamed of her and Fox. He'd thought if she left Bill, with Samantha gone, maybe his dream could come true, but clearly not. She hated him. She _despised_ him.

“You'll still have your son, Teena,” he said easily, ignoring the _our son_ at the back of his mind. “You'll still have Fox.”

Anger flashed across her face and she pulled away, storming out of the room. “You just had to make things worse, didn't you,” Bill hissed at him, coming close in the same matter that he and Teena had been standing a few minutes ago. He looked ready to punch him. “Don't you dare touch my wife, and you stay the hell away from my family!”

“It's unavoidable, Bill,” he said simply. “You know that.” He smiled at Bill. “But I'm your friend, Bill. I'm here to help.”

“Like hell you are,” Bill snapped, and then he was gone too, gone after Teena.

Defeated, he went into the kitchen for a smoke, cracking open the window. He could hear flickers of the argument in the next room--Teena saying, “How can you do this to our family?”, heated and sad and furious. And then he heard the footsteps in the hall.

Curious, he stepped into the doorway and watched as Fox crept down the hall, towards the room where Bill and Teena were fighting. Bill was saying, “I'm not doing it! It's not just me. These orders are coming down from…” Bill turned and saw Fox watching and slammed the door shut.

“You're a little spy,” he said, amused, stepping towards him with the smoke still billowing from the end of his cigarette.

Fox turned towards him, terrified. He was the same gawky kid that Spender remembered, dark hair and long-sleeved striped shirt and pajama pants he was too tall for. Spender was amused at the sight; maybe he was his father's son after all.

“I want to know why Mom and Dad are fighting,” Fox said bravely, although there was an audible tremor in his voice. “What's going on?”

He took a long drag off of his cigarette. “You shouldn't be out of bed, Fox.”

“You can't tell me what to do,” Fox snapped. “You're not my dad.”

Anyone else might have flinched. He simply smiled knowingly.

“Fox?” said a little voice behind them. When he turned, he saw Samantha in her long white nightgown staring at them nervously.

“I told you to stay upstairs, Samantha,” Fox hissed, irritated.

He chuckled with amusement, stubbing out his cigarette. “That's okay, Fox. My goodness, Samantha, I haven't seen you in a long time. You've certainly grown.”

(If they were awake, they may have heard. What game were they playing? Did they know what was going to happen? Did they even understand?)

“Mr. Spender?” Samantha asked uncertainly.

“That's me. I'm glad to hear you remember me.” They'd told him he would be Samantha's caretaker when her time came. Might as well start getting to know her now, his best friend (if he could call Bill a friend anymore) and former lover's daughter. He smiled toothily at the girl. “You know, I've wanted to get to know you better for a long time now. You're the children of my best friends, you know. By default, I consider you _my_ children as well.”

Fox snorted loudly behind them, the picture of a sarcastic adolescent. “Really?” Samantha asked nervously. Her hands twisted in her nightgown.

“Of course, sweetheart.” He extended his arms for a hug. “I hope we can be friends, Samantha.”

She looked uncertain, but she stepped closer slowly. He pulled her in, head landing under his chin. “Samantha!” Fox said with disgust. It was clear his son didn't trust him, the father he didn't know he had.

The door opened behind them, and Teena and Bill were at his side before he realized it. Teena looked disgusted. Samantha pulled away and clung to her mother's side. “He says he wants to be friends, Mom,” she whispered. “But he smells _gross._ ” Not unlike what Jeffrey had said to him two years ago.

Teena stroke her daughter’s curly head but didn't look at her. “Kids, go to bed,” she said, looking straight at him. It was a look that could cut diamonds, a look that burnt him to the core.

“But, Mom…” Fox started.

“ _Now_ ,” Bill said sternly. Samantha scampered away from her mother and down the hall, Fox on her heels. He cast a wary look at Spender as he went, one that suggested that he had witnessed the fight in the living room. The adults listened to the kids climbing the ladder, the squeaking of the floorboards until it was clear they were in bed.

Teena waited until it was quiet before turning on him, nearly shaking with rage. “I want him out,” she hissed. “I want him out of my goddamn house. I'd kick you out too, Bill, if it seemed possible, but at the very least I want him gone.”

He chuckled, pulling a cigarette out of his breast pocket. “That's a lot of hostility, Teena. When I was so polite to your children.”

Her hand cracked across his cheek in a hard slap. He didn't flinch, just looked at her. “Teena,” said Bill wearily.

“You don't get to talk about them, you don't get to look at them, you don't get to lay any claim to them at all,” she growled, fists clenching. “That is not your right. Now get the hell out.”

He left. His cheek still stung from the weight of Teena’s palm. He gulped down half of the bottle of booze in Bill's glove box before walking onto the road to town. He could find a hotel and get on a bus in the morning.

\---

Things were being put into motion. Contact was being made, sacrifices. They called him in and told him his wife was next. “You must bring Cassandra to the airbase when it is time,” they told them. “She is extraordinarily important to this Project.”

He would've been lying if he said he wasn't expecting this. He could've argued, but everyone required sacrifice. He knew this was coming. He told Cassandra he wanted to have a night alone with her, got a sitter for Jeffrey, and drove off to save the world. When it was over, they told him they had a house ready for him and his son. “The next part is starting,” they told him.

He went home and packed up the house. Jeffrey watched him from the couch, thumb in his mouth. He was still wearing his pajamas, the shirt buttoned wrong from where the sitter dressed him for bed. “Where's Mommy?” he wanted to know.

“Mommy had to go away for a little while,” Spender told him as he stacked picture books from the nearby shelf in a cardboard box. Damnit, Cassandra had bought entirely too many of these; at least they could be used to calm Jeffrey (and possibly Samantha) down.

Jeffrey sucked on his thumb, staring down at him where he was kneeled. “What are you doing, Daddy? Are we going somewhere?”

“We're going to a new house,” he said, trying to make his voice nice and comforting. He was in no way equipped to care for young children, honestly. Maybe he should've suggested Fox for abduction; how would he care for the girl? “At an air base. April Air Base.”

“April means Easter!” Jeffrey swung his legs in excitement. “Will Mommy be there?”

“Eventually,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “There might be someone else there, too. A girl for you to play with.”

“But what about my Thanksgiving play at school? I'm a Pilgrim, Daddy. I can't miss school, I won't get to play with Danny and Gerald. We're gonna play tag at recess,” Jeffrey said in a long whine.

“You can go to school at the airbase,” he said, but he was mostly guessing. He regretted sending Cassandra away in the moment; Project or not, Jeffrey needed his mother.

They managed, somehow. Jeffrey was very quiet, sucking his thumb a lot and asking about Mommy every few hours, but they managed. At the new house, his employers had a nanny waiting for him. He could focus on his work, on his writing. “The Mulder girl will be here in a few months,” they told him. They put together a girl's room in the house. Jeffrey watched from the hall, sitting on the floor and playing with model cars. He asked if he was getting a sister. “Sort of,” Spender muttered as he watched two people in coveralls carrying in a bed. It looked nothing like Samantha's bed back in Massachusetts, but then again, it wasn't supposed to be.

On November 27, 1973, Samantha Mulder disappeared from her home. Her older brother was found disoriented on the floor with no memory of the incident. A search began, but it was noted in the police report how uninterested the father seemed in looking for his daughter. How listless and defeated the mother seemed at coming home and finding her missing, reportedly saying that she was gone and there was no use looking for her. (He had expected this. Bill had demanded to know when she’d be taken and they had refused to tell him. The Mulders were given no warning whatsoever. The past few months had shattered them completely.) The police interrogated Bill about Samantha’s disappearance and were fully convinced of his innocence when he broke down in the little room. Reportedly, the boy disappeared for hours one night and was brought home in the back of a police car wrapped in blankets, a flashlight in one hand and his father’s gun in the other. “I was trying to find her,” he reportedly kept saying as he was lead into the house, into his mother’s stiff embrace and father’s disapproving stare. “I’m her brother, I’m supposed to protect her. I have to find her.”

The search was called off at the end of December. Spender signed the order himself.

\---

He didn’t see Fox in person after that, not for a long time. He was worried the boy would make the connection to the fight that summer night in Quonochontaug, and besides that, Teena wouldn’t permit him in the house. He was always watching, though. Once, he'd considered himself above spying, but that was before he was used to seeing his son every summer, and now there was no other way. He had considerably less dignity than he once did. When his wife was returned and abducted again, when his son received a new person to press his hands into cement with, he would leave periodically and fly cross-country to watch his other son. Fox spent long hours walking the streets, the woods, the beach. He holed up in his room but he didn’t read science fiction anymore. He threw pencils at the ceiling, stared blankly at the wall. He’d pause and screw his eyes shut before entering a room sometimes, leaving Spender to wonder what all that was about.

(He knew. He knew where Samantha was, what was happening to her, always, and he never told any of them. He didn’t believe they deserved to know.)

Their employers kept Bill in the know about Samantha, but he started to edge out of the Project, developed a listless disinterest. Teena left him a year and a half after Samantha disappeared, moved to Connecticut and took Fox with her. He went to Bill’s house to try and comfort him, but Bill waved him out of the house, not even bothering to get out of his chair, said _I'll kill you if you come any closer_. He saw the bottles lined up on the counter and thought, _This is how you ruin a man._ He concluded that he must be stronger than all of them.

He left Bill alone and went to visit Teena next, rang the doorbell sometime after Fox must’ve been asleep and waited. He was surprised to feel a gun poke hard into his ribs as soon as the door opened. There was Teena, dressed in a nightgown and bathrobe, graying hair braided back, and poking a handgun into his ribs. “I suggest you get off of my porch,” she said evenly.

He didn’t make a move to leave; instead, he slid his hand into his breast pocket for his pack of Morleys. “Your hostility confuses me, Teena,” he said. “Can’t a man visit an old friend?” He pulled one cigarette out before extending the pack. “Cigarette?”

Teena didn’t move, but a muscle in her face twitched. “We were never friends,” she ground out, jabbing him harder in the ribs with the small pistol. “Whatever transpired between us was a mistake. I realized soon after you disappeared that you never loved me. You never cared for me the way Bill did.”

“Funny thing for a divorced woman to say.” He lit his cigarette.

“He still stood by me for fifteen years,” she growled. “Bastard that he was, he had more honor than you ever did.”

“Funny you should say that.” He took a slow drag and smiled at her. “Well, then, even if a man can’t visit an old friend, doesn’t a father have a right to visit his son?”

“You are _not_. His father.” Teena’s finger curled around the trigger. “You didn’t aid in his raising. You haven’t done anything for him as far as I’m concerned, outside of shielding him from the people who took my daughter, and it seems to me that the only reason you did that was to hurt Bill and me.”

“I’ve always had the boy’s best interest in mind,” he said around the cigarette in his teeth.

“Then you should understand that you are the last thing he needs.” Teena poked him with the gun at the end of every sentence, talking in a rapid-fire pace: “Do you know what this has done to him? Losing his sister like this? He blames himself, you know, and he’s in a horrible place. You ruined our family, you ruined my son. You are no father.”

“And how can you equate yourself to a mother, in that line of thinking?” he said easily. She paled horribly, but he kept going. “I’ve seen, you know. The way you ignore the boy now. How hard he tries to impress you, get your attention, and how little you respond. You only care when he’s out too late because you’re afraid we’ve come for him, too, but you don’t care anymore. You’re so focused on the child you lost that you are forgetting the child you have left.”

“How _dare_ you,” hissed Teena through her teeth. “Don’t you dare pin this on me! You’re the one who took her away. She’s just a little _girl_ , for god’s sake, where is she? What have you done to her?” In a flash, the gun moved from his torso to press against his skull. “Bring her home,” Teena whispered, close to sobbing. “Bring her home and it’ll all be okay. Bring my baby home or I’ll shoot you right here.”

He blew out smoke with a puff, and said, “She’s safe. I’ve seen to that personally.”

“I don’t believe you,” she whimpered. The gun thumped against skin and bone. “Bring her home. Bring my baby back and leave us alone, or I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

He took one last drag before putting out the cigarette on the porch rail. “You won’t kill me, Teena,” he said, self-assured. “You don’t have it in you.”

He turned around and walked away. No gunshot came. He heard the door slam and the horrible sobs behind it as he got into his car.

After that, he still watched Fox but he didn’t speak to Teena or Bill again. He had no desire to put himself to such trouble. It seemed better to watch the boy’s growth from afar.

\---

Years passed. Fox grew into a shaggy-haired, snarky teenager that disappeared to England to go to college, finally going somewhere where his father couldn’t watch him. He was not assauged. He turned his attention to his other son, but by the next year Cassandra had discovered that her husband was not a victim of the experiments they suffered through, but in fact the cause of them. She cursed him and threatened him and took Jeffrey and ran off into the night. He wouldn’t let his employers pursue them. Enough, he said. They could observe from afar, the way he watched the Mulders. At this point, he didn’t miss Cassandra a bit and wasn’t discouraged at the loss of Jeffrey. It was clear the boy hated him and wanted nothing to do with him. That was fine. Jeffrey had always been weaker than he would’ve liked, whinier and frailer and still hiding behind his mother at twelve years old. He’d wait for Jeffrey to become a person who could make him proud.

Still, it was jarring to be alone in the large house on the airbase. The girl’s room that had been set up over seven years earlier was locked, wallpaper peeling, and the rooms seemed too empty without Cassandra and Jeffrey huddled together, whispering. He left, purchased an apartment in DC. Turned back to writing, unhindered by the rejections he’d received years before. All he needed, it seemed, was a typewriter and three or four packs of cigarettes at his side and he was a happy man.

He hardly expected Bill Mulder to show up and blow a hole in his peaceful life, but come he did. He was confused when a knock came at the door--he rarely, if ever, got visitors--but opened it anyway to find Bill Mulder’s fist on the other side. A hard, grinding punch that shifted the muscles in his jaw.

Blinking hard, he stumbled away from the door, a hand shooting to the sore spot. “Bill,” he said, working his jaw back and forth. “What a lovely surprise. It really has been too long, hasn’t it?”

“You son of a bitch,” Bill hissed, shoving his way inside. “I _know_.”

“Know what?” he asked, because there were, after all, several things he could be referring to.

“I know… he’s not mine,” Bill grumbled, rubbing his knuckles with his other hand. “I know he’s your son.”

This was the last thing he’d expected; he’d expected this talk years ago, when Fox was still small. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said politely.

“Oh, _bullshit_.” Another punch, this time to the eye. He staggered back hard into the desk, the sharp edge bearing into his spine. “You know, I should’ve known,” Bill panted. “All that shit about how it should be Samantha instead of Fox who got sacrificed… you were protecting your own interests! You son of a _bitch_.”

There was no denying it; he picked himself up off of the desk, balancing on the chair. “Be that as it may, Bill…” he said unsteadily. “All that was many, many years ago. Why does it matter anymore?”

He expected a spiel on his betrayal, dishonor, how much he missed his little girl. He didn’t expect Bill to laugh and say, “Because I wanted you to know that I know. What I’ve done.”

“What _have_ you done?” he asked. Silence on Bill’s end. Nerves rising, he stood up straight and said, “Bill? What have you done?”

“He may have been yours, but you'll remember I raised him.” Bill laughed again, wildly. “I’ve set him up to ruin you, you son of a bitch. I’ve set him up to look for his sister, to find the truth about everything.”

Breathing hard, he rubbed the sore spots on his face and growled, “And just how have you managed that?”

“You know what Fox is at Oxford for, right?” Bill laughed even harder, saying, “He wants to go into the _FBI_. There, I think, he’ll find the X-Files… that crazy-ass unit Arthur Dales opened? He’s been looking for Samantha for _years_ , that’s why he wants to go into law enforcement. He’ll keep looking, and he won’t stop until he finds the truth. He’ll find you. He’ll take you down.”

He gaped at his former friend, incredulous at what he’d just heard. Of all the things he’d imagined for Fox (his _son_ ), he’d never imagined the boy being his enemy. Never his ruin. For the first time in a very long time, he was speechless.

Seeming satisfied, Bill turned away and headed for the door. Spender scrambled for words, calling after him, “Mulder!” Bill turned. “If you tell Fox the truth,” he said slowly, some attempt at warning, “you know what will happen. It will backfire. It will ruin both of _you_. You’ll be dead.”

Bill considered this before nodding unsteadily. “I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m not going to tell him. He’s going to find out the truth all by himself.”

Bill turned and left on that note, the door slamming behind him like a nail on a coffin.

Head spinning, he collapsed in his chair and breathed in the familiar scent of nicotine. Fox could not be his ruin. He could _not._ The boy may not have realized everything he'd done for him, but he had not put in all of that work just for it to fail in the end. He protected the boy for years. He was his goddamn father. _This cannot happen,_ he thought. _He has to be stopped._

He turned and fumbled for the phone, called someone he knew he could trust. “Ronald,” he said. “I need you to begin surveillance on someone. Yes… yes, a Fox Mulder. He’s over in England right now, getting educated at Oxford, but I think he’ll be back in the States before long.” He swallowed. “I have reason to believe he’s going to be a problem someday,” he said. “I need to make sure that does not happen.”

Bill was right though, he realized as he hung up the phone; Fox _had_ been looking for years, and he wouldn't stop now. The best he could hope for, if Fox found the truth, was that he took after his mother. That he, too, wouldn't be able to pull the trigger.

 


End file.
